Police station attack in Odessa raises stakes in Ukraine crisis

Simon Denyer

Donetsk: Divisions have deepened in Ukraine's third-largest city as pro-Russian militants attacked a police station in Odessa and freed 67 of their allies, while pro-Ukrainian activists gathered with sticks and clubs and vowed to defend the southern city from the kind of takeovers that have occurred in the east of the country.

The spread of the violence to Odessa has raised the stakes dramatically in the Ukraine crisis, bringing the conflict between pro-Russian and pro-Ukrainian forces to the country's most important port.

Pro-Russian detainees are embraced after their release from a police station in the Ukrainian port of Odessa. Photo: AFP

Russian President Vladimir Putin and German Chancellor Angela Merkel spoke by telephone at the weekend, the Kremlin said. Mr Putin told Dr Merkel that he wanted a direct dialogue between Ukraine's acting government in Kiev and "representatives of the south-eastern regions of the country".

In a potentially significant diplomatic move, the Kremlin also said that the head of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, Didier Burkhalter, would visit Moscow on Wednesday. The Kremlin has said it would like the OSCE to head negotiations.

Pro-Russian militants storm the police building in Odessa prior to the release of 67 of their fellows detained inside. Photo: AP

Sunday's mayhem occurred two days after 46 people died in clashes and a fire in the city. The fact that most of those victims were pro-Russian activists has given their supporters a new, raw sense of grievance.

Hundreds of pro-Russian militants took part in the attack on the police station on Sunday, aimed at releasing people arrested after Friday's fighting, according to witnesses and reporters on the scene.

Advertisement

Police gave in and released the prisoners, sparking cheers and chants of "Odessa is a Russian town", witnesses said.

Odessa lies between the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia annexed in March, and the pro-Russian separatist region of Transnistria in Moldova, where Russia has a peacekeeping force. Concerns are mounting that Russia aims to take effective control of a huge swath of eastern and southern Ukraine, right up to Transnistria.

Ukrainian police work to remove riot shields left on the ground by their colleagues outside police headquarters in Odessa. Interim prime minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk had blamed police corruption for the failure to quell unrest in the city. Photo: AP

While Odessa has a sizable ethnic Russian minority - around 30 per cent of the population - polls have found that most residents want to remain part of Ukraine.

Ukraine's interim prime minister, visiting Odessa, accused Russia of fomenting the unrest two days earlier. Calling it a "tragedy for all Ukraine", Arseniy Yatsenyuk also blamed a corrupt police force for failing to prevent the violence.

Ukrainian National Guard troops guard a checkpoint outside Slaviansk in eastern Ukraine, where pro-Russian rebels are reportedly surrounded but there has been no direct offensive on the town. Photo: AP

He tasked prosecutors with "finding all instigators, all organisers and all those that under Russian leadership began a deadly attack on Ukraine and Odessa".

There were signs that backers of the pro-Western government in Kiev were not going to give up control of their city without a fight. Dozens gathered on a main street carrying their own shields and clubs.

"We are never going to lose our city of Odessa to any lovers of the Russian tricolour flag," local leader Zoya Kozanzhy said. "Those who don't like Ukraine can go to Russia."

She said that pro-Ukrainian activists in Luhansk, Donetsk and other cities under separatist control "should organise their own movements and win the war".

"Both sides of this conflict have victims now, so it will take us many years before we go back to a peaceful life," she said.

Ukrainian troops have surrounded Slaviansk and Kramatorsk, two rebel-held cities in the east, near the Russian border. But the soldiers appeared to hold back from a declared campaign to recapture the towns.

In Donetsk, another pro-Russian stronghold, at least 1000 people marched through town chanting "Odessa will not be forgiven".

"There is no Ukraine; it was a stillborn child," said one woman in her 50s as a Ukrainian flag was burned.

Mr Yatsenyuk dismissed Russian accusations that his government was provoking bloodshed in the east with its military offensive. "The process of dialogue had begun, only it was drowned out by the sound of shooting from automatic rifles of Russian production," he said.